The invention relates generally to the field of franking machines and more particularly to the printing of specific type of indicia.
Historically postage meters have been mechanical and electromechanical devices that: maintain through mechanical or xe2x80x9celectronic registersxe2x80x9d (postal security devices) an account of all postage printed and the remaining balance of prepaid postage; and print postage postmarks (indicia) that are accepted by the postal service as evidence of the prepayment of postage.
Soon small business mailers may be able to use their desktop computer and printer to apply postage directly onto envelopes or labels while applying a address. The United States Postal Service Engineering Center recently published a notice of proposed specification that may accomplish the foregoing. The title of the specification is Information Based Indicia Program Postal Security Device Specification, dated Jun. 13, 1996. The Information Based Indicia Program specification includes both proposed specifications for the new indicium and proposed specifications for a postal security device (PSD). The proposed Information-Based Indicia (IBI) consists of a two dimensional bar code containing hundreds of bytes of information about the mail piece and certain human-readable information. The indicium includes a digital signature to preclude the forgery of indicia by unauthorized parties. The postal security device is a unique security device that provides a cryptographic digital signature to the indicum and performs the function of postage meter registers.
There are approximately one and a half million postage meters in use in the United States accounting for about twenty billion dollars of postage revenue annually. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is authorized to regulate the manufacture and use of postage meters. For the past several years the United States Postal Service has been actively proposing a solution to the problem of inadequate postage meter security. The United States Postal Service is also trying to solve the problem that currently available postal meter indicia are susceptible to counterfeiting. The United States Postal Service plans to solve the above problems by decertifying mechanical meters and implementing the Information-Based Indicia Program (IBIP).
The IBIP is a United States Postal Service initiative supporting the development and implementation of a new form of postal indicia. The IBIP specification is intended to address the counterfeiting threat. An IBIP indicium substitutes for a postage stamp or as a postage meter. imprint as evidence of the fact that postage has been paid on mail pieces. The postal security device (PSD) is expected to be a hardware component for use with either a computer based or postage meter based host system. Each PSD will be a unique security device. The PSD core security functions are cryptographic digital signature generation and verification and secure management of the registers that track the remaining amount of money available indicium creation i.e., descending register and the total postage value used by the PSD i.e., ascending register. The PSD will be a tamper-resistant device that may contain an internal random number generator, various storage registers, a date/time clock and other circuits necessary to perform the foregoing functions. The PSD will comply with Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-1 published by the United States Department Of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards, and will be validated through the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Computer Systems Laboratory""s Cryptographic Module Validation Program.
The Information-Based Indicia technology of the United States Postal Service offers the postal customer a way to pay for postage without stamps. Envelopes are franked using the postal customer""s personal computer, a personal computer compatible add on and the customer""s printer. The PSD provides postal value storage and the link to the USPS and the manufacturer of the personal computer compatible add on.
Recent studies have shown that the code format tolerances promulgated in the IBIP specification can only be met by some of the available printers. Both resolution (dots/inch) and positional accuracy seem to be the major limiting factors. Furthermore, the printing technology used is yet another major factor, specifically when combined with the type of paper used to form the envelope. Current estimates suggest that 2-3% of the IBIP indicium that are affixed to mail pieces will not be able to be read due to the use of incorrect printers, defective printers or improper envelopes. It is estimated that another 1-2% of the IBIP indicium that are affixed to mail pieces will not be able to be read due to damage done to the coded message.
The USPS plans to bill mail that contains an Information-Based Indicia that can not be read by automated equipment to the Information-Based module provider unless the provider can show that the inability to read the indicia was caused by mailer or was a Post Office error. It is estimated that it will cost approximately $15.00 to manually process and return each mail piece that contains an Information-Based Indicia that can not be read. The entire USPS IBIP program may fail because of the cost to manually process and return each mail piece that contains an indicium that can not be read. Thus, a problem with the prior art is that the cost to implement the processing and returning of indicium that can not be read could remove the benefit to the USPS and the Information-Based Indicia module provider.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a system that will supply permanent and human and machine readable evidence that a approved printer or unapproved printer was used to print the indicia in question. The system will first capture the postal customer""s or mailers printer type and configuration setting information, paper, ink, or toner combination and then use the foregoing information to enable printing of the Information-Based Indicia if the active printer going to print the indicia is found on a stored (local or remote) xe2x80x9cInformation-Based Indicia Approved Printer""s Listxe2x80x9d. Then the system will add this same printer information to the USPS defined Information-Based Indicia print field format so as to provide evidence that an approved printer or unapproved printer or proper supplies were used. The foregoing printer information may be printed in a coded form on the Information-Based Indicia to automate the sortation of indicium that can not be read. Thus, this invention will improve the processing of Information-Based Indicia mail by reducing and eventually virtually eliminating the use of printers, printer settings, paper envelopes, inks and toners that can not be read by Information-Based Indicia scanners. Hence, this invention will improve the processing of mail.
The foregoing is accomplished by collecting information about the indicia printer, the indicia printer settings, the paper on which the indicia is going to be printed and the ink or toner that is going to be used to print the indicia, using the program contained in the user computer. Then the program contained in the user computer decides if the printer, paper, ink, or toner combination is approved by the USPS to allow printing. At this point the program contained in the user computer notifies the user of the status of the selected printer, paper and ink, or toner. Now, the program contained in the Postal Security Device computer adds the coded representation of the selected printer, paper and ink or toner to the indicia to automate the post processing of mail pieces that have indicia that can not be read.